This Week In Quotes

And Don’t Even Get Me Started on Tribal Signaling. I was just telling someone that every campaign boils down to two four word claims:

I’M
ON
YOUR
SIDE

HE’S
NOT
LIKE
US

Dress it up however you like, the subconscious messaging in every election is just that. — Ace

I keep saying this, and I’ll keep on saying this: You can attempt a winner-take-all strategy against an actual enemy, in this case the Democrat Party, but you cannot, or rather must not, attempt such a winner-take-all strategy against allies.

Because if you employ this All Out War attitude against allies, they’ll first attempt to rebel, and then, failing that, they’ll secede.

Whether the Senior Partners here — the Establishment — likes it or not, whether they think the religious cons are “crazy” and the poorer Republicans are just full of class envy, racism, and resentment, they’ll have to being treating allies as allies, and you negotiate and share with allies. You do not keep fighting to win and keep it all. — Ace

If Rubio knew all along that Obama had bad intentions with his policies, why did he cooperate with him on anything, let alone major initiatives? — AllahPundit

I watched the debate last night and LOVED IT. It felt surreal to hear Donald Trump, the leading Republican contender for President, saying what we at CODEPINK have been shouting to the winds for 14 years now: that Bush and his cronies lied about WMDs, that the Iraq war was catastrophic, and that Bush never ‘kept us safe’ because 9/11 happened on his watch. — Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

See, Marco — Marco — the thing is this, when you’re president of the United States … the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn’t solve one problem for one person. — Chris Christie

For far too long, Christians have been staying home, have been ceding the public square to non-believers and when we look at the state of the country, when our heart weeps at what’s happening to the country and we wonder why is it that the federal government is waging war on life, is waging war on marriage, is waging war on religious liberty is it any wonder when 54 million evangelical Christians stayed home in 2012, did not vote.” Cruz continues: “If we allow our leaders to be selected from non-believers we shouldn’t be surprised when our leaders don’t share our values. So what I’m working to do more than anything else is energize and empower the grassroots and do everything we can for Christians to stand up and vote biblical values. — Ted Cruz

If you only have a high school education, your economic prospects are going to be limited, no matter who is president. We can argue about whether employers overvalue college degrees, but it’s hardly been a secret that employers in the highest-paying fields aren’t interested in job applicants with only a high-school degree, or high-school dropouts.

Today, lot of Americans are telling anyone who will listen, “I got screwed.” You risk an apoplectic frenzy if you dare respond . . . “Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain that your disappointing life circumstances aren’t a result of the decisions you’ve made? At all?” If a man looks at his life, and concludes his prospects for a better future are slim, how much of that is society or the economy’s fault, and how much of it is his fault? It’s a lot easier to blame Wall Street or the richest 1 percent or the elites than to acknowledge our own mistakes and bad decisions.

Maybe I’m a cynic, but I keep running across “victims” who don’t seem like actual victims. Was the housing bubble really just an endless series of Wall Street fat-cats and “predatory lenders” going after well-meaning, hard-working Americans who just dreamed of owning a home? It had nothing to do with people buying houses they couldn’t afford and assuming they could sell them quickly? — Jim Geraghty

Republicans have been waiting 30 years for payback for the shameful rejection of Bork; that day has arrived. Time to pay up, Dems. That’s the only sentence you really need to know. Everything else is mere rhetoric. — Steven Hayward

In 1988 the national debt of the United States stood at $2.6 Trillion, today it is over $19.0 Trillion– an increase of 635% (and projected to reach $29.0 Trillion by 2026). On the other hand the debt of all the nations on earth has grown by only 135% since 1988. — Steve McCann

Sanders and Trump are not leaders of new political movements. Both are where they are because they are willing to put a finger in the chest of their respective party leaders. Neither man makes a great case for himself, but like those Muslim men wandering into Germany, threatening to collapse Europe, they correctly see that the old guard is a collection of yesterday men, unable to defend their position. — Thezman

Football’s kinetic energy is increasing as the players become bigger and even the biggest become faster. In 1980, only three NFL players weighed 300 or more pounds. This season, 354 did, including seven 350-pounders. – George Will